Two by Twos, The Truth, Scientology, CVLT, Zizians
"New Zealand leavers of a secretive sect the FBI is investigating for historical child sexual abuse have formed the first support network for former members in this country.
They said recent publicity has helped lift the lid on the high-control religious group that has no official name or church buildings - weekly meetings are held in members' homes.
The group has many markers of a cult and is known to those who leave as the Two by Twos or The Truth.
Tristan Phipps grew up in the sect and left as a young adult more than a decade ago because he didn't believe in its teaching - including that people outside the group go to hell.
"Things just don't start to match up, you feel very lost and you get to a point where it sounds like a load of rubbish. It's very complex but also very simple at the same time."
It was a lonely time because so few people knew about the group or understood his experience.
He has helped establish the support network for leavers and says there are already 100 people connected online."
The Shrinking World of L Ron Hubbard
"Remastered from the best available source, this amazing show was produced by Charlie Nairn who tracked down Hubbard and approached him to do an interview. Hubbard agreed, not knowing what how aggressive Nairn could be. A true classic and a rare chance to see Hubbard when he was not in full control of his message."
Department of Justice: Four Members of Online Neo-Nazi Group that Exploited Minors Charged with Producing Child Sexual Abuse Material
"Two men were arrested today on charges of participating in a neo-Nazi child exploitation enterprise that groomed and then coerced minors to produce child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and images of self-harm. The group allegedly victimized at least 16 minors around the world, including two in Southern California.
Colin John Thomas Walker, 23, of Bridgeton, New Jersey, and Clint Jordan Lopaka Nahooikaika Borge, 41, of Pahoa, Hawaii, were arrested this morning pursuant to a grand jury indictment that charges them with one count of engaging in a child exploitation enterprise. They are expected to make their initial appearances in court later today in New Jersey and Hawaii.
The indictment also charges two other defendants who are already in custody: Rohan Sandeep Rane, 28, of Antibes, France, and Kaleb Christopher Merritt, 24, of Spring, Texas. The indictment returned by a grand jury on Jan. 17 and unsealed today, also charges Rane and Walker with one count of engaging in a child exploitation enterprise.
According to the indictment, from at least 2019 to 2022, Rane, Walker, Merritt, and Borge were members of CVLT (pronounced "cult"), an online group that espoused neo-Nazism, nihilism, and pedophilia as its core principles. Members of the international enterprise engaged in online child sexual exploitation offenses and trafficked CSAM. Rane, Walker, and Merritt acted as leaders and administrators in the CVLT enterprise, hosting and running CVLT online servers and controlling membership for the group.
CVLT members worked collectively to entice and coerce children to self-produce CSAM on a platform run by CVLT members where they groomed children for the eventual production of CSAM through various means of degradation, including exposing the victims to extremist and violent content. CVLT specifically targeted vulnerable victims, including ones suffering from mental health challenges or a history of sexual abuse.
Victims were encouraged to engage in increasingly dehumanizing acts, including cutting and eating their own hair, drinking their urine, punching themselves, calling themselves racial slurs, and using razor blades to carve CVLT members' names into their skin. CVLT members' coercion escalated to pressuring victims to kill themselves on a video livestream.
When victims hesitated, resisted, or threatened to tell parents or authorities, CVLT members would threaten to distribute already-obtained compromising photos and videos of the victims to their family and friends. For victims who stopped participating in the CSAM, CVLT would sometimes carry through on their threats.
Rane previously was charged with several child exploitation and related offenses in France and has been in French custody since 2022. Merritt is currently in Virginia state custody, serving a 50-year sentence for child sex abuse crimes committed in 2020 and 2021.
If convicted, the defendants would face a minimum penalty of 20 years in prison and a statutory maximum penalty of life in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys' Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.
Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Los Angeles Police Department, San Bernardino County Sheriff's Office, Henry County Sheriff's Office (Virginia), Iowa State University Police, Police Nationale (France), the National Crime Agency (United Kingdom), the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs, and EUROPOL are investigating this matter.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Catharine A. Richmond for the Central District of California and Trial Attorneys Justin Sher and James Donnelly of the National Security Division's Counterterrorism Section are prosecuting this case.
An indictment is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law."
" ... It appears to be a small group, highly educated, computer savvy, at times geographically scattered, and a number of them if not all of them appear to identify as trans or nonbinary — with their deadnames potentially being publicized widely as law enforcement releases information about the cases, as these are still their legal names. If we can call them a cult at all, they aren't the type who all lived together on a compound for extended periods — though if they had a compound, it was a pair of box trucks parked for three years on Curtis Lind's property on Lemon Street in Vallejo, a cul de sac in an industrial part of town.
Neighbors had seen the individuals walking around outside with gas masks, and they'd been seen walking in the nude as well. Otherwise they would be clad in black, and they'd been nicknamed "The Cult."
It's since come to light that they are all vegan, highly intellectual, concerned with the rise of artificial intelligence, and they were linked to a creepy protest action in Solano County in 2019 outside a retreat hosted by the Berkeley-based Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR) — with whom they, or at least the group's purported leader, has some previous ties.
Lind was killed earlier this month at age 82, three months before he was set to testify in the trial of two people who had allegedly attacked him with knives and a samurai sword in November 2022, causing him to lose an eye."
News, Education, Intervention, Recovery
Intervention101.com to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.
CultRecovery101.com assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.
CultNEWS101.com news, links, resources about: cults, cultic groups, abusive relationships, movements, religions, political organizations, and related topics.
The selection of articles for CultNEWS101 does not mean that Patrick Ryan or Joseph Kelly agree with the content. We provide information from many points of view to promote dialogue.
Please forward articles that you think we should add to cultintervention@gmail.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment